USPS Whistleblower Warns New Rule Could Keep Voters From Getting Ballots—What To Know

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A whistleblower astatine the U.S. Postal Service reported “grave concerns” pinch the agency’s caller strategy for mail-in ballots arsenic it’s travel nether occurrence successful court, informing lawmakers that the “risky and haphazard” implementation of the norm could support millions of voters from receiving a mail-in ballot successful the November midterms.

An anonymous whistleblower submitted a report to Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., astir the implementation of USPS’s caller rule connected mail-in voting, which requires predetermination officials to taxable elector accusation to a national database arsenic a information for the Postal Service to present mail-in ballots.

USPS’s rollout of the caller norm has been a “secretive, rushed, chaotic, and fundamentally flawed process,” the whistleblower alleged, pinch the agency implementing a caller IT strategy that was “rapidly built and minimally tested” and could consequence successful a “catastrophic nonaccomplishment which could derail the midterm elections.”

The caller strategy could lead to voters not receiving ballots, the whistleblower alleged, pointing to caller verification processes that require mail-in ballots to person typical barcodes to guarantee they’ve been approved successful the national strategy and noting the “opportunity for correction … is high.”

The measurement the strategy is designed intends that if moreover 1 barcode successful a batch of 10,000 doesn’t scan properly, the full batch of ballots would beryllium rejected and sent backmost to predetermination officials, the whistleblower alleged, “effectively stopping the ballots from being mailed to voters.”

While the caller USPS norm is presently blocked successful court, the whistleblower alleged workers were directed to proceed processing the caller strategy moreover arsenic tribunal orders were successful spot barring the agency from moving guardant pinch implementing it, alleging the “ongoing work” was “inconsistent” pinch the agency’s claims that it was not implementing the caller norm for the midterm elections while the tribunal orders against it were successful place.

The Postal Service has not yet commented connected the whistleblower report.